Comments on: The Pit of Despair

By: MAKE | Your Comments

MAKE | Your Comments — Mon, 16 Jul 2012 18:03:47 +0000

[...] response to The Pit Of Despair, user Marty says: You know, there’s actually a really simple solution for too much demand, even [...]

By: myrkul999

myrkul999 — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 18:27:01 +0000

In a word: Yes. That sounds like a great idea.

By: rahere

rahere — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 16:55:47 +0000

There’s a specialist leatherworking hackerspace about a mile from the London Hackerspace which sees small businesses setting up: can this be a path for hackerspaces to move from a purely hobbyist scene to one where we can find employment for the unemployed into the bargain and start spinning off small enterprises as a deliberate policy, rather than as a happy coincidence?

By: Tommy Phillips

Tommy Phillips — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 14:49:51 +0000

Thanks for reminding me why sometimes I buy from SparkFun even when they don’t have the best price possible.

And, for any of you other makers in Colorado, if you haven’t been to a SparkFun class, you are missing out on a good resource and a fun time.

(Just a happy customer, not affiliated with SFE.)

By: myrkul999

myrkul999 — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 09:15:34 +0000

Don’t get me wrong, if you can get the help to get the job done at the same price, by all means, do it. That’s a great way to bridge the “pit of despair” between hobby and business. I was just pointing out another way to build the bridge, or at least dig yourself out, that you can do solo, if you need to.

By: Rahere

Rahere — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 08:41:11 +0000

Not really the point – makers do it to add to human welfare, in part, whether as knowledge or pleasure depends. But the problem is the same: even a minute part of the six-plus billion human race is overwhelming. We’re in the business of finding niches, but even so they can be quite big.
However, that being said, there are operations out there who can help. In terms of scaling up, me old mucker Nick Campling runs a business in the UK specialising in helping people engineer their idea into production, and there are quite enough small entrepreneurs willing to help hitch their wagon to a good idea by running it as a business for you. Nick does it because it’s what he enjoys, he’s independently wealthy from an idea he had in his early teens, the G7 one-handed guitar capo, he just likes helping others move from the garage into a business. I’ll leave it to you to find him – just to prove this isn’t a spam – and there may well be others in the US, I only speak of what I know.

By: Marty

Marty — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 07:00:30 +0000

You know, there’s actually a really simple solution for too much demand, even when you can’t get a collaboration: Raise the price. This has the added bonus that if you still get tons of orders, you can afford to make it your day job.